US Politics Mega-thread - Page 243

On May 18 2013 02:19 kwizach wrote:

It's not the Senate, it's the House. Obama isn't "pushing" anything with regards to the health care law - it's already the law of the land. The gun legislation had a chance to pass, but it didn't, so right now they aren't trying to push it again - they'll wait until they have the votes. The House, meanwhile, voted for the 37 times for a repeal they know has no chance to pass the Senate.

Obama is not pushing agenda after 37 votes. Obamacare is already through and is a law. Obama is not pushing his gun proposals over and over again just to make a statement. They have the right to try and I have the right to ridicule them when they show they are more interested in posturing instead of actually doing something constructive.

On May 18 2013 03:28 aksfjh wrote:

I wonder if those numbers are usually lead or lag indicators of economic activity. Either way, they don't seem "real," or at least important in the current climate. There aren't any reasons for consumer sentiment to rise, apart from getting used to unaltered levels of economic disparity. Incomes haven't risen above their previous highs, underemployment is still ridiculous, housing numbers are erratic, and none of the key drivers of these things are getting any better. This report looks more like sociology and less like economics.

On May 18 2013 08:30 kwizach wrote:

Screening politically active organizations is normal. What's not normal is screening organizations based on their political affiliation. From what I read in the article, nothing indicates Obama administration officials were aware the latter was going on.

On May 18 2013 09:15 kmillz wrote:


We'll see, from what I heard at the hearings it sounded like there was a lot of we still have to find out. Steven Miller was being very obfuscating and seemed incapable of answering the simplest of yes or no questions.

On May 18 2013 00:13 paralleluniverse wrote:

Yeah, right.

It's so logical, how can anyone deny it.

So your logical story is this: Republicans had the emails before the White House released them, and despite them having the emails, they had to force the White House to release the emails which they already had, by publicly releasing the emails with slightly altered content.

Make sense.

REP. MIKE KELLY (R-PA): This has nothing to do with political parties. This has to do with highly targeted groups. This reconfirms everything the American public believes. This is a huge blow to the faith and trust that the American people have in their government. Is there any limit to the scope where you folks can go? Is there anything at all? Is there any way that we could ask you is there any question that you should have asked?

My goodness. How much money do you have in your wallet? Who do you get emails from? Whose sign do you put up in your front yard? This is a tax question? And you don't think that's intimidating? It's sure as hell intimidating. And I don't know that I got any answers from you today. And I don't know that -- what Mr. George said is great work -- but you know what? There's a heck of a lot more that has to come out in this. Any anybody that sat here today and listened to what you had to say, I am more concerned today than I was before, and the fact that you all can do just about anything you want to anybody?

You know, you can put anybody out of business that you want. Any time you want. I gotta tell you. You could talk about how you're a horribly run organization, if you're on the other side of the fence, you're not giving that excuse. And the IRS comes in, you're not allowed to be shoddy, you're not allowed to be run horribly, you're not allowed to make mistakes, you're not allowed to do one damn thing that doesn't come in compliance, and if you do, you're held responsible right then. I just think the American people have seen what's going on right now in their government. This is absolutely an overreach and this is an outrage for all Americans.

On May 18 2013 04:10 JonnyBNoHo wrote:

It's a leading indicator. I think you're too pessimistic. Income and employment have been steadily improving for years and housing is doing fantastic. Starts are up 13% YoY and prices are up almost 10%.

On May 18 2013 11:22 aksfjh wrote:

I'm pessimistic because I'm weighing the recovery against what it should be, not what it could be.

Wages are still far below their 2008 highs, but educational attainment is higher than ever. Households have stopped the deleveraging process, but debt levels are still the same. Rumor has it that more Americans are living hand-to-mouth, which would explain the lack of deleveraging. Inflation is still below target, which hints that job growth is stifled. The only bright spots come from company profits and cash reserves, but those won't fuel more recovery in their current state. As for housing, YoY we're doing great because the entire thing collapsed in 2008. Housing prices are now where they were in 1998, which is arguably lower than before the bubble.

The only saving grace of our position is that we aren't in the Eurozone. By all other standards, the economy is still in the crapper and it stopped gaining ground on the potential in 2010.

On May 19 2013 01:03 JonnyBNoHo wrote:

Disposable income is near pre-recession levels. Meanwhile, thanks to deleveraging and low rates, debt payments are taking a record low bite out of budgets. That makes for a strong consumer, particularly in regards to housing where affordability is still sky high.

Add to that a shrinking trade deficit and growing government budgets and we should have a pretty good situation going forward.

On May 18 2013 02:24 Sermokala wrote:

In order for it to be a joke you have to have a punchline. What part about that doesn't make sense to you? Just beacuse you live in a blinkered "lets ignore anything that doesn't prove my ideology" doesn't mean the rest of us do.

It doesn't help that the union that services the IRS gives so wildly disproportionaly to anti tea party democrats. People arn't angry that the IRS did something wrong people are angry that the people in the IRS just continued their partisan ways inside the office as they do outside of it. And beacuse Obama wants to just shuffle this under the rug like the other scandels refusing to actually do anything at all about them the shit is just going to keep pileing up for 2014.

You thought the tea party was a firestorm of idological fury before? just imagine how strong they're gona be when the government is literally out to get them.

On May 18 2013 11:22 aksfjh wrote:

I'm pessimistic because I'm weighing the recovery against what it should be, not what it could be.

Wages are still far below their 2008 highs, but educational attainment is higher than ever. Households have stopped the deleveraging process, but debt levels are still the same. Rumor has it that more Americans are living hand-to-mouth, which would explain the lack of deleveraging. Inflation is still below target, which hints that job growth is stifled. The only bright spots come from company profits and cash reserves, but those won't fuel more recovery in their current state. As for housing, YoY we're doing great because the entire thing collapsed in 2008. Housing prices are now where they were in 1998, which is arguably lower than before the bubble.

The only saving grace of our position is that we aren't in the Eurozone. By all other standards, the economy is still in the crapper and it stopped gaining ground on the potential in 2010.

On May 19 2013 01:03 JonnyBNoHo wrote:

Disposable income is near pre-recession levels. Meanwhile, thanks to deleveraging and low rates, debt payments are taking a record low bite out of budgets. That makes for a strong consumer, particularly in regards to housing where affordability is still sky high.

Add to that a shrinking trade deficit and growing government budgets and we should have a pretty good situation going forward.

On May 19 2013 06:23 aksfjh wrote:

Disposable income is still below pre-recession levels, while GDP is above. Private consumer debt went down slightly since the recession started, but is still higher than ever before, and consumers have stopped deleveraging. If we're to believe recent reports about education, people are investing in education instead of homes for the long term, betting on better/higher income jobs, but that is far from the case. We're setting ourselves up for another round of deleveraging in the near future.

The trade deficit gains are being fueled mostly by a glut in oil inventories (due to weakness especially in the EU) as well as a drop in US oil consumption. Exports are still declining, just not as fast as imports. This is probably seasonally related, but the outlook behind the numbers points to this as a coming trend.

Housing indicators are going to continually improve until they hit an income/debt barrier (which is likely to happen sooner than later). At that point, incomes will HAVE to rise, but if unemployment/underemployment is still high, that's not going to happen. We need the unemployment numbers to come down, which either requires businesses to spend their cash piles or the government to reverse most of the austerity they've committed to.

As for paralleluniverse, we've been hearing that recovery is 2-3 years away since 2010. The issue seems to be that we assume it will just happen on its own because we've been good or something. We see the same projections for Ireland, but nothing happens. I don't see things returning to normal without course corrections, like the Japanese have started doing.

On May 18 2013 08:28 Danglars wrote:
But of course, once we raise taxes ... many times more money gets spent!
It's really just a huge tax hike with talk about closing the deficit. If passed, Congress is free to just spend many more times the money that's coming in, and increase the federal deficit as they always do. Tax and spend is the name of the game, and Obama's business as usual on that front. Well, I tried closing the deficit, but those mean old Republicans ...


I hadn't really heard of Congressman Mike Kelly before I read this news article. He grilled the departing IRS commissioner on his failure of responsibility and the ramifications of this scandal. Check out this LINK for the video.

On May 18 2013 17:43 paralleluniverse wrote:

The deficit is already fixed. Haven't you heard.